What is it with than name ‘Steve King’ and horror shows? Of course, it’s the political Steve that I’m concerned with here. He’s trying to develop what we might call the ‘Western Iowa Strategy.’
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) leveled a somewhat startling charge against President Barack Obama on Monday, saying the president instinctively “favors the black person.”
King made the comments during an appearance on the G. Gordon Liddy radio show.
“When you look at this administration, I’m offended by Eric Holder and the president, also, their posture,” King said, as captured by Media Matters.
That must refer to their shuck n jive posture.
“It looks like Eric Holder said that white people in America are cowards when it comes to race. And I don’t know what the basis of that is, but I’m not a coward when it comes to that, and I’m happy to talk about these things and I think we should. But the president has demonstrated that he has a default mechanism in him that breaks down the side of race — on the side that favors the black person.”
It’s true that Rep. King is not a coward when it comes to race. He’s totally upfront about how much black people in power ‘offend’ him. And he did it on G. Gordon Liddy’s radio program. You probably know Liddy from his involvement in the Watergate break-in. You probably don’t know that he worshipped Hitler as a child and chose his wife because of her teutonic characteristics.
When he listened to Hitler on the radio, it “made me feel a strength inside I had never known before,” he explains. “Hitler’s sheer animal confidence and power of will [entranced me]. He sent an electric current through my body.”
My father is from Iowa. It’s not a place known for heated racial politics. Most Iowans I’ve met are painfully polite and well-mannered. I don’t understand why Steve King has a constituency for this kind of gutter politics. But this is a concerted effort to convince ordinary white voters that the president and members of his administration are biased against them and are always looking to side with black people. Most of the time, these kind of messages are a bit more subtle. Rep. King is explicit. I know his district is very religious and culturally conservative, but I don’t think this is how they want their congressman to behave.
And, I thought about it. I can’t point my finger to anything the president has done that would merit the criticism. It’s pure fantasyland.
It’s not what the President has done, it’s what he is. He embodies the “people not like us” narrative. It’s not that Steve King’s supporters are racists (in their own minds), rather that they can be made to fear that the “other” side are. Painfully polite manners and painfully paranoid politics are not mutually exclusive characteristics.
Well, I think that King is out of step with his district. He can get away with it because he district is so hostile to the Democratic Party, but I don’t think King’s antics actually appeal to his constituents very much.
Is King from Iowa or is he a carpetbagger from further south? I too have relatives there — and live next to it — and don’t see the kind of overt viciousness that King appeals to. On the other hand, when a good friend goes to the occasional class reunion in Cedar Rapids, she finds that ALL of her old gang — solidly middle-class college grads — take everything Limbaugh and Beck, etc, say as the god-given truth. In the absence of Cronkite or Murrow these types have become the standard for conventional wisdom. And yet the state manages to outdo its more metropolitan counterparts when it comes to environmental/energy experiments, sustainable ag, good schools, and a general lack of the kind of of sectarian no-nothingism that infects its neighbors to the west. In a way it’s the Midwest’s most inscrutable state.
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Born in 1949, King grew up in Storm Lake, Iowa. He attended public high school and then Northwest Missouri State University, though he did not graduate. After college he returned to Iowa and in 1975, he started his own land excavation business, King Construction.
Iowa State Senate
King brought his conservative philosophy to the hustings for the first time in 1996, when he ran for and won a seat in the Iowa Senate. He defeated an incumbent Republican in the primary, campaigning heavily on his opposition to abortion rights.
As a state legislator, King worked on many of the issues he would later emphasize in the House. He sponsored bills promoting English-only rules in the state and a so-called “God and Country” law that required Iowa schools to teach that the nation had “derived its strength from biblical values.”
He also pushed for repeal of the state income tax and the estate tax, and other tax reductions. King gained attention statewide for suing then-Gov. Tim Vilsack (D) after the governor signed an executive order extending anti-discrimination protections to individuals based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Iowa Republican: Obama favors blacks over whites
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Frank, I really struggle with this as well. I live in West Virginia, which is peopled by many fine people who would do anything for a neighbor. Good to be around, friendly. Also many are racist, racist in a way that is so deeply ingrained as to be almost genetic. It explains their visceral reaction (and the reaction of much of Appalachia) to that “other” in the White House. And I have no answer for it, because I don’t see it changing in rural areas – and we are one big rural area.
Adam Serwer
King is dog whistling the same old crap: Obama doesn’t “know his place”, meaning he doesn’t show proper respect to his white betters. Oh yeah, he’s the president. But, he’s the black president, so its not like he’s supposed to act like he’s the most powerful man in the world or anything because that would be disrespectful.
Exactly. I have no doubt that the nice folks who murdered Emmett Till in Mississippi were civil, maybe even kindly toward Negroes who knew their place. It’s only when some interloper from Chicago fails to pay homage to his betters that the tribal imperative goes into action.
He hasn’t had his Sista Soulja moment – wait, yes he has…
not sure that he had much choice when the dude said McCain doesn’t belong in any chair except a wheelchair and called Clinton a bitch.
Very true, but the point is that he’s done everything that is humanly possible to make folk “comfortable” with him. Hillbillies are going to be hillbillies, rednecks are going to be rednecks, and Republicans are going to be Republicans – they can be nothing other.
Have we reached a point where only northerners like King and Bachman can make these overtly racist remarks? Most southern politicians would catch hell if they went this far, this openly. Are they the thin edge of the wedge aimed at making open racism cool again nationwide?
Personally I wish King were right and Obama focused on the kinds of change that would make the country a better place for the economic class in which most “minorities” continue to be stuck. That would make it a better country for everyone. Fact is, Obama bends over backwards to avoid any appearance of favoring the underclasses. His highest aspirations are aimed squarely at the “middle class”.
I take the efforts of King et al as preemptive strikes to make sure that’s how it stays.
the President is Black.
plain and simple.
that’s all.